The term “trading interest” is used herein to describe any expressed interest in trading a given security or securities, and the term “certified trading interest” is used herein to describe a trading interest that has been verified as genuine and certified as such by some trusted third party. One example of a genuine trading interest is an order that has been placed on a securities market automatic matching system. A second example of a genuine trading interest is a trading interest expressed by a party with a documented history of aggressive trading. An example of a trading interest that would not be certified is an undocumented indication of interest (known in the art as an 101).
In public securities markets, market mechanics and trading psychology create barriers to efficient information dissemination and price discovery. A market participant's decision to reveal information regarding a large trading interest typically represents a tradeoff between confidentiality and liquidity. As used herein, the term “market participant” refers to any person or firm with the ability to trade securities; examples of market participants include broker-dealers, buy-side firms, sell-side firms, and private investors trading on electronic communication networks (ECNs). “Buy-side” firms are those that buy new issues of securities, as distinct from broker-dealer firms that “sell” such new issues.
By publicly revealing the details of a significant active buying interest, for example, a market participant assumes the risk of adverse price action. Other market participants with legitimate selling interests and market makers can “fade” their offers (become much less aggressive sellers). There is also an empirically demonstrable risk of adverse price action due to “front running” (buying activity by market participants in anticipation of price movement resulting from the large revealed order). Confidentiality can be maintained by splitting the large order up into many small orders to avoid arousing interest, but this is inefficient and will fail to attract substantial natural contra-interests. An economically efficient transaction is therefore missed because the trading costs associated with disseminating information are too high. Also, the common practice of splitting large interests into smaller orders affects all price discovery. When confronting each order, a market participant must incorporate the possibility that the order is only a small part of a much larger interest, because it is often impossible for the market participant to verify that many such orders are not being sent simultaneously.
Another serious obstacle to efficient dissemination of trading interests and price discovery is the lack of validated information about trading interests. The validated trading interest information which does exist (e.g., displayed executable orders) is often of little assistance. Displayed orders are minuscule compared to undisclosed interest, and typically equate to no more than one or two minutes of trading in a liquid stock in the U.S. market. Displayed orders can therefore be easily manipulated, for example, to indicate excess buying interest when sellers are in fact abundant. In addition, non-validated misinformation is often created and disseminated by unscrupulous market participants to manipulate market prices. Voluntarily disseminated trading interests can be false or misleading if they are not verified either by proof of a current executable order, actual trades executed, or canceled orders which were at one point executable at risk in the market. Because there is often no way for a market participant to verify an expressed trading interest or to know which other market participants have a history of unscrupulous trading behavior, all prices must incorporate the possibility of such behavior.
One known approach to voluntary selective dissemination of non-validated trading interests and activity in public equity markets is used by the AutEx+® system. This is an electronic database and online network that provides users with the ability to voluntarily publicly indicate trading interests and executed trades. AutEx+® users can limit the recipients of a message regarding a trading interest by inclusion (a user-defined list) or exclusion (blocking specific named market participants). Users can also limit by name the securities on which they receive information and the other users from whom they receive information.
In the AutEx+® system the expressed trading interests and reported trades are not certified, however, and this creates the opportunity for deceptive dissemination of tracking information. In addition, users of the system are not obligated to report all trades, which offers further opportunities to create false impressions of trading interests. Significantly, this approach does not permit the use of certified trading interests (CTI) to limit information dissemination to those market-participants likely to have a contra-interest. It also does not enable using such CTI analysis to permit market participants to limit the trading interest indications received. It also does not provide the ability to initiate an auction based on disseminated CTI analysis information. It also does not enable the monitoring of user trading activity to generate a rating of the accuracy of disclosures or the correlation of trading activity to inappropriate trading practices.
One known approach to matching trading interests and executing trades while limiting information dissemination is employed by the POSITS matching system. The POSITS system allows trading interests to accumulate and initiates a matching sequence at set intervals. Market participants place confidential orders in the system and are unaware of the amount or aggressiveness of other orders on the same or contra side until the matching is released. This approach does not enable targeted communication of trading interests based on analysis of verified executable interests and trading activity, and does not provide the ability to initiate private auctions based on this analysis. It also does not permit granting the auction initiator any exclusivity over contra-orders entered in response to the targeted dissemination.
In this environment, there is an acute need for efficient dissemination of confidential information regarding trading interests. Market participants with large confidential trading interests wish to notify only those other market participants likely to have a significant contra-interest. Other market participants wish to be notified of confidential certified trading interests to which they are likely to have a contra-interest. Both groups wish to have a place to transact a trade once they have been connected through analysis of their certified trading interests. Market participants also desire a means of certifying expressed trading information and access to certified information regarding the trading behavior of other market participants.